Producing Localized Commodity Frontiers at the End of Cheap Nature: An Analysis of Eco‐scalar Carbon Fixes and their Consequences

There is no single ‘great’ commodity frontier whose exploitation under current socio‐technical conditions could fuel capital accumulation at the global scale. According to Jason Moore, this represents the ‘end of Cheap Nature’ and signals a terminal crisis for capitalism as we know it. In this article we complicate this assertion by showing how, in the context of global environmental governance frameworks of carbon control, a diverse range of actors situated at multiple scales are intensifying the use of cities and their hinterlands for the production/transgression of localized commodity frontiers. We draw on scholarship on uneven geographical development, state‐led restructuring and eco‐scalar fixes to present two case studies from different segments of the carbon cycle in the global South. The first case demonstrates how the introduction of waste‐to‐energy technology in Delhi facilitated the generation of ‘carbon credits’ while waste matter itself became a commodity. The second discusses attempts by the Brazilian state of Amazonas (Amazônia) aspiring to shift from rainforest exploitation to financialized conservation supported by the ‘green global city’ functions of metropolitan Manaus. These cases demonstrate that although the global carbon‐control regime may enable accumulation, implementation remains speculative, and localized commodity frontiers provoke social resistances that jeopardize their durability.     

Preparing for higher inflation: Portfolio solutions using U.S. equities

Investors have always been interested in reducing inflation risk in their portfolios. However, investors face different types of inflation than those measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Moreover, different asset classes can be used to hedge portfolio inflation. In this paper, we show how individual equities can be used to construct equity portfolios sensitive to customized inflation targets. We illustrate portfolios for three types of inflation: US headline CPI, Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index, and the US Medical Care Price Index. We also show how alternative weighting schemes, such as minimum volatility and maximum inflation beta, can be used to construct inflation‐hedged portfolios.     

How individualism–collectivism influences consumer responses to the sharing economy: Consociality and promotional type

With the explosion of online exchange of products, the sharing economy is experiencing ever-increasing growth. Despite the increasing popularity of lateral exchange market platforms as part of the sharing economy, research has not yet adequately investigated cultural effects on how consumers’ intentions to purchase products on these platforms. Using two studies, this paper examines whether consumers high in individualism versus consumers high in collectivism respond differently to platforms with low versus high consociality and how individualistic and collectivistic consumers respond differently to two types of promotions that relate to self-maximization. Findings in Study 1 indicated that consumers high in individualism (collectivism) have higher patronage intentions toward a platform low (high) in consociality. Findings in Study 2 suggested that in the presence of a promotion, collectivistic consumers respond comparably to promotional types across platforms, whereas individualistic consumers respond more positively to collective (individual) promotions when consociality is low (high). Further, felt commitment to others as a result of the consociality/promotional type relationship explains these effects. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.     

Blocked But Not Tackled: Who Founds New Firms When Rivals Dissolve?

Research summary: This article examines the role of competitive shocks in creating opportunities for new firm foundings. I argue that the sudden dissolution of rival firms may release resources that create opportunities for firm formation, particularly among employees facing impediments to capturing value in their current organizations. Analyzing microdata from the legal services industry, I use unexpected deaths of solo‐practicing attorneys as quasi‐exogenous sources of rival dissolution. Results indicate that these shocks increase the odds of founding by about 30%, with stronger effects among attorneys with weaker social connections or higher competition for promotion. The article thus highlights the role that founders play in reallocating dissolved rivals' resources while demonstrating that founding may be an important outlet for “blocked” employees to capture value from opportunities. Managerial summary: This article finds that the shutdown and dissolution of a rival organization may spur employees to found new firms. As a consequence, managers may find it valuable to pay attention to employees' turnover intentions following the dissolution of a rival. Findings suggest that employees who are having trouble advancing in the firm may be the most likely to found a new organization when a rival dissolves, so managers may want to focus retention efforts on these individuals. To the extent that managers wish to capture customers, employees, and other resources that were formerly attached to a dissolved rival, managers may wish to be aware that they could be in competition with their own employees for these resources and opportunities. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Super returns to Super Bowl ads?

This paper uses a natural experiment—the Super Bowl—to study the causal effect of advertising on demand for movies. Identification of the causal effect rests on two points: 1) Super Bowl ads are purchased before advertisers know which teams will play; 2) home cities of the teams that are playing will have proportionally more viewers than viewers in other cities. We find that the movies in our sample experience on average incremental opening weekend ticket sales of about $8.4 million from a $3 million Super Bowl advertisement.     

Measuring stress in money markets: A dynamic factor approach

We extract an index of interest rate spreads from various money market segments to assess the level of funding stress in real time. We find that during the 2007–2009 financial crisis, money markets switched between low and high stress regimes except for brief periods of extreme stress. Transitions to lower stress regimes are typically associated with the non-standard policy measures by the Federal Reserve.     

FIRE SALES FORENSICS: MEASURING ENDOGENOUS RISK

We propose a tractable framework for quantifying the impact of loss‐triggered fire sales on portfolio risk, in a multi‐asset setting. We derive analytical expressions for the impact of fire sales on the realized volatility and correlations of asset returns in a fire sales scenario and show that our results provide a quantitative explanation for the spikes in volatility and correlations observed during such deleveraging episodes. These results are then used to develop an econometric framework for the forensic analysis of fire sales episodes, using observations of market prices. We give conditions for the identifiability of model parameters from time series of asset prices, propose a statistical test for the presence of fire sales, and an estimator for the magnitude of fire sales in each asset class. Pathwise consistency and large sample properties of the estimator are studied in the high‐frequency asymptotic regime. We illustrate our methodology by applying it to the forensic analysis of two recent deleveraging episodes: the Quant Crash of August 2007 and the Great Deleveraging following the default of Lehman Brothers in Fall 2008.     

Consequences of Mutual Ownership for Building Societies

This paper argues that the mutual ownership of building societies entails, in principle, different objectives from those of a company. It considers whether members' interests are best served by maximising either surpluses or growth and reviews evidence on economies of scale and effciency compared with banks. Conversion seems unlikely to result in great improvements in effciency and it is hard to say whether members benefit from free shares by more than they may lose as customers. The case of Abbey National is examined in the light of the reasons it gave for conversion.     

Evaluating wind-following and ecosystem services for hydroelectric dams in PJM

Hydropower can provide inexpensive, flexible fill-in power to compensate for intermittent renewable generation. Policies for hydropower dams maintain multiple services beyond electric generation, including environmental protection, flood control and recreation. We model the decision of a hydroelectric generator to shift some of its power production capacity away from the day-ahead energy market into a “wind-following” service to smooth the intermittent production of wind turbines. Offering such a service imposes both private and social opportunity costs. Since fluctuations in wind energy output are not perfectly correlated with day-ahead energy prices, a wind-following service will necessarily affect generator revenues. Seasonal wind patterns produce conflicts with the goal of managing rivers for “ecosystem services”—the maintenance or enhancement of downstream ecosystems. We illustrate our decision model using the Kerr Dam in PJM’s territory in North Carolina. We simulate the operation of Kerr Dam over a three-year period that features hydrologic variability from normal water years to extreme drought conditions. We use an optimization framework to estimate reservation prices for Kerr Dam offering wind-following services in the PJM market. Wind-following may be profitable for Kerr Dam at low capacity levels during some time periods if ecosystems services are neglected and if side payments, or reserves-type payments, are provided. Wind-following with ecosystem services yields revenue losses that typically cannot be recovered with reserves market payments. Water release patterns are inconsistent with ecosystem-services goals when Kerr Dam dedicates significant capacity to wind-following, particularly in drought years.